Adelson-Backed Group Imports Europeans to Attack Obama

Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, raises a gavel as he calls the Republican National Convention (RNC) to order in Tampa, Florida on Aug. 27, 2012. Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Critics of President Barack Obama
can be found on all corners of Tampa, Florida, this week, even
those of the European variety.

Six European Parliament members expressed disapproval with
the president at an event sponsored by YG Network, a nonprofit
aligned with a super political action committee funded by casino
billionaire Sheldon Adelson. Echoing a familiar Republican
charge, they said Obama has put the U.S. on a parallel path with
Europe, where some nations are muddling through a fiscal crisis.

“Europe and America are suffering from the same
problems,” Martin Callanan, a U.K. conservative and chairman of
the European Conservatives and Reformists Group in the European
Parliament, said in an interview a few blocks from where Mitt
Romney will accept the presidential nomination tonight at the
Republican National Convention. “We have an excessive debt,
excessive borrowing and we have too high taxes, and we’re not
competing with the rest of the world.”

Romney hasn’t endorsed the use of European politicians as
surrogates in the presidential campaign, though the former
Massachusetts governor has embraced the Republican charge that
Obama’s economic policies are leading the U.S. into “European-style socialism.”

The group of European Parliament members sitting a few
doors down from the Hooters restaurant in Tampa underlined the
new reality in the time of mega-donors, fundraising groups and
super-PACs: The campaign doesn’t always control the message.

Like Greece

Though Romney has said he doesn’t believe the U.S. is in
the fiscal shape of Greece or Spain, that hasn’t stopped
surrogates from pressing the issue.

The politicians from the Alliance of European Conservatives
and Reformists delivered their remarks at YG Network’s
convention headquarters named for Adelson’s wife, Miriam
Adelson. Adelson and his wife gave $2.5 million each to the YG
Action Fund, a super-PAC, in April.

Standing a few feet from the full-service bar, with more
than a dozen leather couches and chairs and projection screen
televisions tuned to Fox News, Callanan said Romney and running
mate Paul Ryan will keep the U.S. from spiraling into economic
disaster.

‘Free Lollipops’

“It’s easy to be a politician offering free lollipops to
everybody,” said Callanan, who has become a favorite of U.S.
conservatives. Yet “saying, ‘Look, we have to cut your
benefits, we have to have less public spending in order to
regrow the economy and in order to get our debt down and in
order to avoid burdening the next generation with unsustainable
levels of debt, that’s a hard message to sell.”

He spoke after a panel titled, “Hey America! Don’t take
this road: The Europeanization of the United States.”

Callanan predicted Greece will leave the euro zone, though
he said he doesn’t expect it will happen until after the U.S.
election.

Obama’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

Jan Zahradil of the Czech Republic, another member of the
European Parliament and president of the alliance, said the
Obama administration has failed in foreign policy. He pointed to
the president’s decision to scrap a missile-defense agreement as
a “betrayal” of the lawmakers in Poland and the Czech Republic
who fought through domestic political pressure to support the
initial agreement.

“We are bitter about it and we think that if it was upon a
Republican administration, it would have never happened,” said
Zahradil.

Impressive Pageantry

Callanan said he was invited to attend the convention by
Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee.
He said he was impressed with the pageantry of the event. The
RNC did not return calls for comment.

“It’s unlike anywhere else in the world,” Callanan said
with a laugh. “I sat up in the balcony yesterday and watched
all the Texas delegation dressed in identical shirts and big
hats and the Colorado delegation dressed in red.”

Meeting Romney and Ryan was Callanan’s ultimate goal,
though he said that was unlikely to happen this week.

“I accept that we’re international observers, and they
have an election to fight and they should be talking to
Americans and not to us,” he said.